“You have not been long absent—­merely a few months; but if you returned now, you would be astonished by the progress which the Opposition, one might say the Revolutionary Party, has already made.  The disorders in the university do not concern merely the students.  I see in the affair the beginning of serious dangers for public tranquillity and the existing order of things.  Young people, without distinction of costume, uniform and origin, take part in the street demonstrations.  Besides the students of the university, there are the students of other institutions, and a mass of people who are students only in name.  Among these last are certain gentlemen in long beards and a number of revolutionnaires in crinoline, who are of all the most fanatical.  Blue collars—­the distinguishing mark of the students’ uniform—­have become the signe de ralliement.  Almost all the professors and many officers take the part of the students.  The newspaper critics openly defend their colleagues.  Mikhailof has been convicted of writing, printing and circulating one of the most violent proclamations that ever existed, under the heading, ‘To the young generation!’ Among the students and the men of letters there is unquestionably an organised conspiracy, which has perhaps leaders outside the literary circle. . . .  The police are powerless.  They arrest any one they can lay hands on.  About eighty people have already been sent to the fortress and examined, but all this leads to no practical result, because the revolutionary ideas have taken possession of all classes, all ages, all professions, and are publicly expressed in the streets, in the barracks, and in the Ministries.  I believe the police itself is carried away by them!  What this will lead to, it is difficult to predict.  I am very much afraid of some bloody catastrophe.  Even if it should not go to such a length immediately, the position of the Government will be extremely difficult.  Its authority is shaken, and all are convinced that it is powerless, stupid and incapable.  On that point there is the most perfect unanimity among all parties of all colours, even the most opposite.  The most desperate ’planter’* agrees in that respect with the most desperate socialist.  Meanwhile those who have the direction of affairs do almost nothing and have no plan or definite aim in view.  At present the Emperor is not in the Capital, and now, more than at any other time, there is complete anarchy in the absence of the master of the house.  There is a great deal of bustle and talk, and all blame they know not whom."**

     * An epithet commonly applied, at the time of the
     Emancipation, to the partisans of serfage and the defenders
     of the proprietors’ rights.